Let's empower the deaf: Soeharto

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto urged the nation yesterday to empower deaf people by assisting them into gainful employment and turning them into productive citizens.

The huge cost of educating the deaf would be wasted unless society put them to work, Soeharto said as he opened the first joint congress of Total Communication Indonesia and the Forum of Communication for the Deaf at the State Palace.

His speech was communicated to congress participants by assistants using sign language.

Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro said in his address that of the 41,015 physically disabled children currently being educated in special schools, 4,027 are deaf.

The Ministry of Social Services has estimated the number of deaf people at around 600,000.

Soeharto said that because physically disabled people are spread across the archipelago, the costs incurred in providing them with education and turning them into productive citizens are huge.

Because the government's own resources are limited, society is expected to take the initiative, he said.

The President acknowledged the initiatives of both the institute and the forum in drawing up a standard sign language and opening a job agency for the deaf.

He called on the deaf to keep up their spirits and to never lose self confidence. "As citizens, you have equal rights and you have the same obligations as other citizens in this country to build the country that we all love," he said.

"You may be physically disabled, but you are not spiritually disabled. This is the chief asset in facing life," he said.

The House of Representatives is currently deliberating a government drafted bill that deals with the rights and obligations of disabled people. The bill makes it a crime for an employer to reject a person on the basis of the individual's physical disability.

The bill however has been criticized by disabled people as falling short of ensuring their full rights, particularly political rights, as citizens. (ste)